[Ghoser777]

I'm working on project in Java where I want to draw Strings. So say I have a String object and a Font that I want to draw it in. No problem - in my paint(Graphics) method I'll just set the font and call drawString().

Unfortunately, I also want to resize my container to fit the String appropriately. To get the required width and height to draw the String in, I need a FontRenderContext, which I can get from a Graphics object. But I can't get my Graphics object until I'm actually drawing. But if I resize my container while redrawing, won't paint get called again? This seems frustrating, as there is an easier way to do this with Cocoa (I need an applet though).

Thanks,
Matt Fahrenbacher

[beamso]

Originally posted by Ghoser777:
I'm working on project in Java where I want to draw Strings. So say I have a String object and a Font that I want to draw it in. No problem - in my paint(Graphics) method I'll just set the font and call drawString().

Unfortunately, I also want to resize my container to fit the String appropriately. To get the required width and height to draw the String in, I need a FontRenderContext, which I can get from a Graphics object. But I can't get my Graphics object until I'm actually drawing. But if I resize my container while redrawing, won't paint get called again? This seems frustrating, as there is an easier way to do this with Cocoa (I need an applet though).

Thanks,
Matt Fahrenbacher

Hi. The java.awt.Component class has a getGraphics() method, so you can get the graphics even if you aren't in the paint method. You can also get the Font for the component, using the getFont() method, and then use this to get the font metrics for this class using the getFontMetrics() method. The font metrics class will should give you a similar figure to that of the FontRenderContext class. (I can't confirm that last bit because I've never used FontRenderContext, but I have used the FontMetrics class)

[Ghoser777]

Ah ha! Didn't realize it had that method. That fixes everything.

Thanks,
Matt Fahrenbacher

[absmiths]

Originally posted by Ghoser777:
Ah ha! Didn't realize it had that method. That fixes everything.

Thanks,
Matt Fahrenbacher

I don't generally like to mess with the Graphics object outside of paint() or update(), so I usually just use Toolkit.getFontMetrics() to do it. It is deprecated now, but I think that is just in multiple monitor environments.